PM3107: Restoration Christian Church

RCC = Restoration CCRCC = MCC - M(which is to say, the Restoration Christian Church believes whatever the Maratrean Christian Church believes, but does so without the identity of being an auxiliary ecclesiae; it stands in no specified relationship to the central vessel.)

Principles:

Idealism - Fundamental reality is only mind/qualia
Matter is just patterns in the experiences of minds
Mind cannot begin/end, nor be created nor destroyed, but can merge/divide

One single human-divine nature, but the human and the divine represent different degrees of expression of this nature - the human the diminutive expression, the divine the fullest expression

Time is circular, being beginningless and endless, yet of finite duration

One single soul at the beginning-end of time, from whom all have divided and to whom all shall return

That one single soul is the original-final-ultimate divinity (God), who willingly divided himself to become the many souls which now exist, emptying himself of divinity (of the fullness of the expression of the common divine-human essence) to become us (kenosis), yet at the same time remaining (in one of his divisons) in the fullness of his original divinity

God (the single original-final soul, the soul-remaining-in-fullness during the period of division) has the utmost power (whatever anyone can do, God can do; whatever God can't do, no one can do), the utmost knowledge (whatever anyone can know, God knows; whatever God does not know, no one can know), but not infinitely so; nothing is infinite, God is finite, yet God is the greatest finite thing

God's will is absolute, which none can disobey. Does God have free will? Yes, in the sense that there is nothing external to God which controls or overpowers the will of God. No, in the sense that God cannot do other than as God does, for God acts precisely as his nature dictates. His will is free against others, but cannot be free against himself. Do humans have free will? Yes, in the sense that they are normally free from direct overpowering interference in their own decision-making - others can influence them, but not in a way which is absolute and always successful (such as mind control). On the other hand, they are not free against the will of God, but nor should we expect them to be. "Free will" is relative - it is not about being free or not, but one can be free relative to one standard, yet not free relative to another. Humans have free will against other humans, but lack free will against God.

God is perfectly good and perfectly beautiful; goodness and beauty are aspects of the fulness of the divine nature. Since we possess that same nature, expressed diminutively, our own knowledge of goodness and beauty follows, but since we express it diminutively, our knowledge of it is limited

God exists inside time, not without it. The essence, nature, of God is unchanging, but the experiences of God change from moment to moment. But God has perfect memory; he can remember anything he wants. Since time is circular, and he has (in his fulness) existed at every moment of it, he remembers the present and the future.

God creates evil for the sake of the good. God wills the good as an end in itself, the evil as a necessary means to that end. All evil is willed by God, and is necessary for the good.

God creates not just one universe, but rather many

These universes are not entirely separate creations, but connected. Universes divide, forming a branching structure. When a universe divides, so do all the souls within it. Universes develop and divide in accordance to the divine will, in obedience to the divine commands.

It is necessary that some suffer for the happiness of others; the divine fairness and justice dictates that those who suffer in one branch are compensated with happiness in another; after death, all shall be granted perfectly intimate knowledge of such other branches in which such compensation occurs

The Maratrean Christian Church serves two fundamental purposes. Firstly, it expresses the perenenial truth using the resources of the Christian tradition. Secondly, it may itself enrich the Central Vessel with insights which the Central Vessel might otherwise have lacked, by re-translating its own distinctive insights back into terms which the Central Vessel will find comprehensible. It should not be thought that this is an exclusive prerogative of the Maratrean Christian Church; on the contrary, it is the prerogative of every auxiliary ecclesia.